| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: So free the access, the doors so widely thrown,
You half imagine all to be your own.
AD MARTIALEM
GO(D) knows, my Martial, if we two could be
To enjoy our days set wholly free;
To the true life together bend our mind,
And take a furlough from the falser kind.
No rich saloon, nor palace of the great,
Nor suit at law should trouble our estate;
On no vainglorious statues should we look,
But of a walk, a talk, a little book,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: hermit. It was the healing of a fourteen-year-old boy, whose
mother brought him to Father Sergius insisting that he should lay
his hand on the child's head. It had never occurred to Father
Sergius that he could cure the sick. He would have regarded such
a thought as a great sin of pride; but the mother who brought the
boy implored him insistently, falling at his feet and saying:
'Why do you, who heal others, refuse to help my son?' She
besought him in Christ's name. When Father Sergius assured her
that only God could heal the sick, she replied that she only
wanted him to lay his hands on the boy and pray for him. Father
Sergius refused and returned to his cell. But next day (it was
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft: the government is stronger than ever. . . . If the Alien Bill
passes, our American friends must mind their p's and q's, for if
they praise the "model republic" too loudly, they may be packed off
at any time, particularly if they have "long beards," for it seems
to be an axiom here that beards, mustaches, and barricades are
cousins-german at least. . . . Mr. Bancroft goes to Paris on Monday,
the 17th, to pass the Easter holidays. He will go on with his
manuscripts, and at the same time witness the elections and meeting
of the Convention.
LETTER: To W.D.B.
LONDON, April 19, 1848
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move,
said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn't believe it--I had no sight
into Daisy's heart, but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking,
a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable
football game.
And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East
Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all. Their house was
even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian
Colonial mansion, overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach
and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over
sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens--finally when it reached
The Great Gatsby |
